THE HOUSE : To Change Labor Law

By a vote of 247 to 182, the House sent the Senate a bill (HR 5) making it illegal for employers to replace workers striking over economic issues. The bill is labor's top Capitol Hill priority this year. Workers can not be fired for going on strike. But a 1938 Supreme Court ruling allows them to be "permanently replaced" while off the job, as happened, for example, in the 1989 Eastern Airlines strike.

The bill also bans employers from giving post-strike job preference to workers who crossed picket lines.

Supporter Dale E. Kildee (D-Mich.) said: "Let us restore to labor the only tool they have, the right to strike without the fear of losing one's job."

Opponent Mickey Edwards (R-Okla.) said the bill promotes "more strikes, lost jobs, lost rights, a less competitive America and endangering the health and safety or our constituents."

To Fund Technology By a vote of 172 to 246, the House refused to remove a new loan program from a bill (HR 1989) designed to improve U.S. competitiveness. President Bush says he will veto the bill because the program strikes him as unwise industrial policy.

At issue is whether the government should use loans to try to pick winners among promising generic technologies. The disputed program would put relatively small amounts of taxpayers' capital behind selected companies and products.

A yes vote was to strip the loan program from a bill authorizing $348 million next year to promote American technology. Source: Roll Call Report Syndicate